The Winery Web Site Report

Small is the New Big

Please take a look at this post from Seth Godin: Small is the New Big.  You can read it in less than 5 minutes, but if you truly take it to heart, it can positively affect your business for the next year and beyond.

From where I sit, it's about the advantages that (potentially) accrue to smaller wineries over the five-hundred-thousand-case-a-year giants.  Here's the catch:

Small is the new big only when the person running the small thinks big.

Small can be a competitive advantage if you're smart.  That's why I'm always a bit surprised at how uniform winery Web sites are in their appearance.  I think most of us are suckers for a compelling story, and most sites don't tell one.

Take a look at this site (it's not a winery).  Intrigued by what they're selling?  I was, even though I'm not in their target market. Can you imagine a winery Web site like this?  I can't (and we've surveyed over 2,200 of them).  The Web site for Stu Pedasso Cellars is certainly irreverent, but not necessarily compelling.  Jake's Fault tries a different, hipper tack, but starts off with one of those damnable age-verification screens (and then fails to deliver on the other side).  If you know of a truly compelling winery Web site, please leave a comment.  The most compelling stuff I see these days is in winery blogs, which are uniformly from small wineries.

Small is indeed the new Big.

PS - if you like Seth's post, he's got a whole new book of them by the same name.

Interview with the Winery Blogger

Bloggasm interviews Mary Baker, who writes the Dover Canyon winery blog.  Best sentence from the interview:

Our winery blog is a way for us to connect on a personal level with our customers and fans.

Even though Mary didn't include this blog on her list of "five blogs to read besides Dover Canyon" at the end of the interview, we still like her (it's a good five).

The Top Ten Viticultural Mistakes

From Ron Barrett at Kinkead Ridge:  The Top Ten Viticultural Mistakes.  #1 on the list: Poor Site Selection.

Although Ron's varietal recommendations are specific to the Ohio River Valley, where Kinkead Ridge is located, the top ten mistakes seem generally applicable.  He wrote the list in an effort to help others who are interested in growing grapes along the Ohio River.

It's great to see small winery owners sharing their knowledge online.  And I found the Top Ten because I subscribe to Kinkead Ridge's blog.

New Winery Blog: Domaine de la Gramiere

The Domain de la Gramiere blog isn't strictly a new winery blog:  Dr. Vino mentioned them back in September, 2005, as did NoBullGrape, and they've been posting since July.  But since they're based in France, I had avoided adding their blog to our comprehensive list until now, since we can't presently add them to our winery database (we struggle a little with foreign wineries, since The Winery Web Site Report currently focuses only on US-based wineries). 

Amy Lillard attempted to add their Web site to our database, and that led me to take a closer look at their blog. I found the story of two Americans buying a vineyard in Languedoc and starting a winery to be interesting,, and they have been posting about once a week, which is a good sign for more interesting stuff to come.  They have an RSS feed, so go subscribe and follow their second year of making wine (biodynamically, even).

I'm very interested in how Domain de la Gramiere will sell their wines, how the Web figures into that process for them, and how readers of their blog can get some of the wines that they are reading about.  See?  Writing a blog has already gotten me interested in drinking their wine!

Free Marketing Wisdom

If you do online marketing, get your free copy of Marketing Wisdom for 2006 from MarketingSherpa.com.  It contains over 100 user-tested (and Sherpa-selected) ideas for improving your online marketing.  Although none of the ideas were submitted by wineries, there are certainly some worth stealing for your winery. Idea #73 should be of particular interest to readers of this blog, as it includes the comment (based on a survey of 300 small-business Web sites):

Most site owners were ignoring that visitors arrive at a website seeking something...

something that is right in line with our own beliefs about visitor effectiveness.

While you're there, sign up for Marketing Sherpa's excellent e-mail newsletters in the sidebar at upper-left.  They consistently have some of the most interesting and well-written case studies of online marketing.  Highly recommended.  Also available as an RSS feed (point your RSS reader to www.marketingsherpa.com and it should find it automagically).

Thanks to Debbie Weil for the pointer.

Does Your Site/Blog Have SpeedFeed™ ?

What if every time you changed or added something on your Web site, people who had expressed an interest in such changes received automatic notification without any additional effort on your part (or theirs)?  Sound good? Then all you need is SpeedFeed.

(Note: some assembly required)

The point of "SpeedFeed" is that RSS is a horribly geeky name (and choosing from a plethora of RSS readers is not something to foist on someone who has never subscribed to an RSS feed).  Believe me, I know.  I used to create consumer software for a living (Chessmaster, Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing!), and one of the reasons these programs became the best-selling computer { chess program, typing tutor } in the world is because they were aimed at normal people (and had pretty high production values for the day).

Imagine if your customers could download a little  "Acme Winery" widget for their their Windows (or Mac) desktop.  Shaped like your logo, it would appear in color if there was something new on your Web site (or in your blog), black & white otherwise.  Clicking on the widget would bring up a list of the most recent updates to your site/blog.

Believe it or not, this is just a custom SpeedFeed (aka RSS) reader.

If anyone wants to buy one, let me know.

Lenn asks, "Is weekly posting enough?"

Lenn commented on my last post (So You Wanna Start A Winery Blog...), and asked "Mike...do you really think weekly posts is enough?"  He suggested twice a week as a minimum.

Basically, you should post whenever you have something interesting to tell your readers, and post often enough that they don't lose interest.  I'm quite willing to wait a while for one of Dover Canyon's stories (although I love the excitement of Tom Wark's daily posts).

I'd rather have a good post once a week, than a mediocre post every day.  (Hint: if you like taking digital pictures, taking an interesting one and writing a little bit about it is an easy way to create good posts).  That's why I suggested 30-60 minutes to put one together.  A good post takes a little time (for me, anyway).

As I said in my original post, posting more often tends to be better (assuming there's good content in those posts), but I also know that most wineries don't have dedicated bloggers, and most of their potential readers don't use an RSS reader to read blogs by subscription (yet) - instead they read by visiting the blog itself. So, once a week is a reasonable minimum. If it becomes a chore for a winery blogger (owner, winemaker, marketing director, tasting room manager, ...) to think up something to post, their blog is doomed.

These aren't wine bloggers, these are *winery* bloggers! Many small winery owners (who stand to benefit the most from blogs) just want to make wine, which is why you see poorly-thought-through Web sites and no winery blogs.  A winery blog is a way of involving readers in the story of your wines.  Tell the story well, and those readers will buy your wine, and pass the story along to others (and maybe they'll buy, too).  In your reader's minds, blogging sets your winery apart from all those who apparently don't have anything interesting to say about their wines.

I'm trying for a reasonable compromise here. After all, I want to encourage wineries to dip their toes in the water and tell us their stories. Hopefully, some of them will catch the bug.  Right now, exactly none of the winery blogs on our list are posting regularly each week. 

Personally, I'm ready to help any winery that wants to blog with advice and encouragement (and a subscription to their RSS feed). And I know Lenn is, too (particularly those Long Island wineries).

So You Wanna Start A Winery Blog...

If a winery owner or winemaker said to me, "I'd like to start a blog," here's what I'd say to them:

1. Don't do it just because everyone else is.  If you're not interested in telling a story about your winery and its wines, you're better off not starting, because (a) people will sense it, and (b) you'll end up quitting.
2. The best,easiest way to start a winery blog is TypePad, an online service.  It will cost you $8.95 a month for the "Plus" level of service, which is the minimum you should consider because it offers domain mapping (see below).  The next (and highest) level of service is Pro, at $14.95 a month.  No, I don't make anything for recommending TypePad (free alternatives are Blogger and Wordpress).
3. Pay for a year of service, which costs the same as 10 months of month-to-month ($89.50).  After all, you're making a commitment to this blogging thing, aren't you?
4. Plan on posting at least once a week.  Can you spend 30-60 minutes once a week telling your audience an interesting story about your wine?  Sit down and brainstorm 10 things to write about before you start (you don't have to do this alone).  Posting more often is better, as it helps build readership (people love new content, if it's interesting).  Tom Wark, who has rapidly become one of wine's preeminent bloggersi, posts daily over at FERMENTATION and his posting frequency (along with expertise) is one reason.
5. Don't announce your blog until you have posted at least 5 - 10 times.  Having content for your first visitors when they arrive gives them a sense of what you write about and whether they might be interested in subscribing.
6. Instead of publicizing http://yourwinery.typepad.com/ as your blog's Web address, use TypePad's domain mapping feature to make the URL for your web log http://blog.yourwinery.com/ (minor geekery required).
7. Link to your Web log from your home page and/or site navigation.  Take advantage of existing traffic to your Web site to increase your blog readership.  Don't hide your blog.
8. Get the word out to your existing customers via e-mail and newsletter.  Tell them it's a way of getting an inside look at what goes on with your wine (it should be).  Intrigue them, and then deliver on your promise.
9. Always tell a story.  People who are interested in your wines are genuinely interested in the story behind them.  There are stories everywhere if you have the eye for them.  Write authetically about the challenges and pleasures in making your wine.  A blog is not a sales pitch, but a good one will get people interested in buying your wines.
10. Get the word out to the blogging community - we keep an up-to-date list of winery blogs at The Winery Web Site Report, so let us know about it.
11. Read other winery bloggers for inspiration.  Mary Baker at Dover Winery is one of the best, but all of them are making a sincere attempt to bring their audience closer to their wines.
12. Subscribe to your own blog, so you see what the world sees.  That may mean learning about RSS readers (hint: use Bloglines - it's simple).
13. Provide clear instructions for people who might want to subscribe using an RSS Reader.  Pretend you know nothing about blogs, RSS, or RSS readers.
14. Have some trusted subscribers that you can ask for feedback, and then ask for it.  Your mom doesn't count.
15. Be patient. Be authentic.  Have fun with it.

What would you add to (or subtract from) this list?

blog.WineryWebSiteReport.com

A brief Saturday housekeeping item: you can now visit this blog at http://blog.WineryWebSiteReport.com/ - continue reading to see why you might want to do something similar for your blog.   The old address (http://mikeduffy.typepad.com/wwsr/) will continue to work just fine (which is important, since people and search engines have links which use the old address).

We've done this to improve our public "face" - our blog is now definitely associated with our domain (WineryWebSiteReport.com) and product (The Winery Web Site Report).  There also appears to be some anecdotal evidence that a name like blog.YourWinery.com positively affects Google's PageRank, so your blog posts are more visible in searches involving your winery's name.

This change was relatively easy to make, since TypePad (the service that hosts this blog) offers domain name mapping, which allows you to point a domain name (like blog.WineryWebSiteReport.com) to a specific blog.  Not all blog hosting services offer this feature, and if you host your own blog, it will require a small bit of geekery to achieve the same effect.

Why did we wait so long to do it?  Like for most small businesses, it was on our list almost from Day One (we started blogging last April).  Last night, after recommending domain name mapping to a brand new winery blog, I finally decided to take care of it for our own blog.  Shoemaker's children go barefoot, etc.  It took less than 20 minutes of work (most of which was reading documentation), and then waiting for the changes to take effect (overnight).

[Geeky side note: Technically, blog.domain.com is a host name, i.e. the name of a computer, which hosts (provides) a service on the Internet.  TypePad's documentation simply calls it a domain name, since their customers really aren't interested in the finer points of Domain Name System (DNS) terminology.  For example, www.example.com is a reasonable name for the host which handles World Wide Web requests for the example.com domain.  Yes, Virginia, that's where the whole dubya-dubya-budya thing originated.]

New Winery Blog: Mankas Hills

Mankas Hills Vineyards has a winery blog, which we've added to our list, bringing the total to 16 winery blogs (out of over 2,200 wineries with active Web sites).  They have an RSS feed, so go subscribe!

Mankas Hills is located in the Suisun Valley, just to the east of Napa, and focuses on making world-class Cabernet Sauvignon wines.

Your Winery Web Site: Survey says....

The Wine Institute's new survey of 2,442 wine consumers says

Winery websites were also found to be as popular as other wine and lifestyle websites among those interested in on-line information.

The survey also notes that word-of-mouth (WOM) is the most powerful influencer of wine consumers.  How can you generate more WOM for your wines?  It's worth some thought.

From Wine Business Online.  Interestingly, the Wine Institute Web site makes no mention of the press release (at least not as of 9 AM Thursday morning).

New Winery Blog: Chateau Julien

Chateau Julien's blog is the newest addition to our list of winery Web logs.  Of course, now they need to link to it from the Chateau Julien home page and tell people how to subscribe.

I suspect we'll see more winery blogs started this month as people act on their New Year's resolutions to market their wines more actively.

Do you love your wines?  Do you have an interesting story to tell about them?  Are you willing to make a weekly commitment to telling that story to people who are interested in hearing it?  A blog for your winery might be the answer.  I recommend starting quietly - when you publicly announce your blog, it's nice to have 5-10 "previous" posts, as it adds weight and shows that you're committed to writing.

Now that I've written that, I realize may have prematurely "outed" Chateau Julien's new blog (which I found because they mentioned The Winery Web Site Report, which showed up in my Technorati watch list (you have one set up for your winery's name, don't you?  Think of it as a press clipping service, only for mentions of your winery in logs...)).

(((enough parentheses?)))

New Winery Blog: Kinkead Ridge Estate Winery

Update: Kinkead Ridge has moved their blog to TypePad (kinkeadridgewinery.typepad.com), so now they have an RSS feed!

The newest addition to our comprehensive list of winery blogs is from Kinkead Ridge Estate Winery in (presumably scenic) Ripley, OH, just southeast of Cinncinnati in the Ohio River Valley.  They've been writing since October of 2005, and appear to have an interesting tale to tell (experienced Pinot Noir growers from Oregon move to Ohio to make wine).

If you look at our list, you'll see the notation "No RSS Feed" next to the listing for Kinkead Ridge.  This is a serious shortcoming for a blog.  An RSS "feed" (basically, a list of updates)  allows people to subscribe to your blog using an RSS reader (e.g. Bloglines.com), which means that they don't have to repeatedly visit your web page to see if you've written anything new.  It also affects the visibility of your blog in blog search engines like Technorati or Google Blog Search, since they scan RSS feeds, not Web pages.

I'm glad to welcome Kinkead Ridge to the winery blogging world, and I sure hope they get an RSS feed soon so I can subscribe.

(PS - Thanks to WineCast for the pointer to the Kinkead Ridge blog.)